SD Card (or USB) Method

You can run SD Remix on your GameCube off of an SD Card or other storage device. Since the easiest homebrew methods involve using the SD Card, we will specifically go over using the SD Card, though running off of other storage devices will be similar and you’ll be able to use this guide as a base.

This is not the preferred method because of issues that will be discussed in Step 3. However, it is the one that you are most likely going to be able to do, due to old GameCubes not being able to play DVD Backups. It should be noted, though, that despite these issues, this method is still tournament worthy, so you can use it to both run tournaments and practice for competitive play.

Step 1: Prepare your SD Card

Put the SD Remix ISO onto your SwissGC compatible card. The faster this card is, the faster menus and stages will load (it can even be faster that the original game).

Step 2: Run SwissGC

Assuming you’re using the SD Media Launcher, put the SwissGC dol onto the SD Media Launcher SD Card (this can be a separate card from the SD Card with SD Remix on it, in case your SD Media Launcher SD Card is not Swiss compatible or if you just want SD Remix on a faster SD Card). Start up Action Replay with the SD Media Launcher in a memory card slot and select the SwissGC dol. It should start Swiss GC and start reading off of your SD Card:

If your SD Card is compatible and fast enough, Swiss will read your SD Card and go to the main menu. Otherwise, it will be stuck here. If it is stuck, go ahead and take out your SD Media Launcher and replace the SD Card with your Swiss compatible card with the SD Remix ISO on it. You might have noticed that the main menu loaded when you took out the SD Media Launcher. Put the SD Media Launcher back into the memory card slot. You are now at the main menu:

Navigate right until you come to this option:

Press “A” to select this option. It should go back to “Reading SD in slot A/B”. If your SD Card is compatible and fast enough, it should eventually come to a screen with all of the files from your SD Card:

Navigate through until you find your copy of SD Remix. Press “A” to select it. You will come to this screen:

From here, press “X” to go to the options. You will want to go to the 3rd page:

You will notice interesting options. The important one, however, is “Mute Audio Streaming”. You will want to set this to “Yes”, as this will reduce the amount of audio glitching and slow during menus (don’t worry, there is no stuttering or glitching during gameplay). Once that is set, go to “Save & Exit” to go back to the game info screen:

Press “A” to continue. You will come to this screen:

While not strictly necessary, it is recommended that you put your official copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee into the GameCube at this point, then select “Yes”. You’ll come to this screen:

If everything turns out okay, you’ll come to this screen:

We recommend you select “No”. You’ll then come to this screen:

After it is done, and with any luck, you’ll be in SD Remix!

Step 3: Dealing with issues

There are a few issues when running SD Remix this way, none of which affect gameplay.

Firstly, if you used Slot A for your SD Media Launcher, if you don’t have a memory card inserted into Slot A, or if the memory card inserted into slot A does not have a save file with SD Remix, you will get this screen:

If you press “A” to get past this dialog, it will briefly show another dialog but then immediately go back to this same dialog, making it so you can’t get past this screen. To deal with this, you must rapidly press “A” so that during the brief moment that the second dialog appears, you press “A” to get past that second dialog. I recommend spamming “A” with your index finger until you see the opening movie.

Secondly, you will notice that the menus load slowly, and when you first load a menu, everything stutters and slows down. This will just happen using this method. Fortunately, this issue only affects menus and does not affect gameplay (music and sounds are loaded before a match starts, so it doesn’t slow down gameplay). This issue will be lessened if you use a fast SD Card.

Thirdly, music and sounds in menus will appear to sound glitchy. Again, there is nothing that can really be done. Fortunately, the music and sounds during gameplay are fine, so you only have to deal with it during menus.